Speaker 1: Richard de Krepney, Straight Talk mate.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, great to be here.
Speaker 1: Now. We did something and many many years ago. I
Speaker 1: think it was the Mike Boris Show, but this is
Speaker 1: straight Talk. It's a different show. And it's actually timely
Speaker 1: that you're in here. I mean, you've got for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons, and we want to talk again about
Speaker 1: your book that you released man years ago. I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about the sorts of presentations you
Speaker 1: make around leadership and teamwork, et cetera, because I think
Speaker 1: it's really important for people to know about that stuff
Speaker 1: right at the moment, especially, But also, and I know
Speaker 1: you've got a new podcast called fly and we want
Speaker 1: to talk about we were talking earlier, but you know,
Speaker 1: podcasts are tough things to do, so we'll.
Speaker 2: Talk about they're very tough.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about fly back. But I just want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about aeroplanes and or commercial aeroplanes, and
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind touching on private aircraft as well, because I've
Speaker 1: got a mate who's got private aircraft which he least
Speaker 1: out to anyone who wants to use it. So and
Speaker 1: I think Australians travel more now than we ever have
Speaker 1: in the past.
Speaker 2: I have going to stats to prove mediations growing fifteen percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in terms of number of aeroplanes.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventies, aeroplanes can't keep up passengers travel, so everything
Speaker 2: is congested airports, airspace, not enough and not enough aircraft.
Speaker 2: Some of the new engines have been pushed so hard
Speaker 2: they're not working. So some of the altar tech is
Speaker 2: actually better than they need.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, the airline is actually saying, can we please
Speaker 2: go back to the previous generation of engines because the
Speaker 2: new generation engines. You see, everyone's trying to outdo the
Speaker 2: next manufacture of engines. They say, I'm going to promise
Speaker 2: five percent on the last engine. They're pushing these engines
Speaker 2: to the max, and now they're going too far. Gearboxes,
Speaker 2: turbine blades are overheating, these sort of things are happening
Speaker 2: and a lot of engines are being grounded. The aircraft
Speaker 2: is still safe because you have recording systems that show
Speaker 2: a degradation over time, so they can predict that the
Speaker 2: engine's going to have a problem enough one hundred hours,
Speaker 2: one thousand hours, so they take them offline before they failed.
Speaker 1: Hopefully, Yeah, they do.
Speaker 2: Only they do, and they repair them. But a lot
Speaker 2: of engines are grounded around the world, causing troubles for
Speaker 2: the new as to twenty for seven eight sevens for
Speaker 2: the for the ABU seventh, all aircraft having problems getting
Speaker 2: enough engines from the manufacturers. The old engines are working
Speaker 2: reliably long time, the new engines are having trouble bedding
Speaker 2: in so.
Speaker 1: Now, and I will declare front, I am a nervous traveler,
Speaker 1: so whether it's commercial, private, And if I had a choice,
Speaker 1: i'd actually if I had to go to say coins
Speaker 1: and I'd rather if I had time, would rather drive.
Speaker 1: And I don't mind the drive actually, but as opposed
Speaker 1: to taking the risk for inconvenience. For convenience, I should say,
Speaker 1: which is traveling by plane. And I'm someone who travels
Speaker 1: literally every week somewhere every week, sometimes twice. So just this,
Speaker 1: I do want to talk to you. But the first
Speaker 1: thing I want to cover off is Q thirty two is.
Speaker 2: Thirty that's QF thirty two. That's right.
Speaker 1: That that was about fifteen years ago, right, and that
Speaker 1: was your flight in Singapore changed my life. Let's just
Speaker 1: take me through what happened again, take an audience through
Speaker 1: what happened on q F thirty two.
Speaker 2: Okay, it was a routine flight from Singapore to Sydney,
Speaker 2: the fourth November two thousand and ten. So we're coming
Speaker 2: up for fifteen years and we're we're four minutes after
Speaker 2: tay coof engine number two exploded.
Speaker 1: Got four engines, four.
Speaker 2: Engines on this A three eighty. The biggest, most wonderful
Speaker 2: aircraft in the sky is that you say that absolutely
Speaker 2: still still the most remarkable aircraft. Three eighty and the
Speaker 2: A three eighty the quietest, smoothest.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ride that down for myself because I'm
Speaker 1: always on three eighty.
Speaker 2: People will divert one thousand miles to start their journey
Speaker 2: just to pick up an A three eighty. It is
Speaker 2: so quiet compared to the say seven three seven, it's
Speaker 2: about four times one quarter of the noise, okay, it is.
Speaker 2: It is. So it was so quiet on that A
Speaker 2: three eighty that day that when engine number two explode
Speaker 2: to four minutes after takeoff, one passenger didn't even know
Speaker 2: we're in the air. He thought we'd hit a pothole
Speaker 2: on the runway. So it's really quiet, powerful, spacious, you
Speaker 2: don't get chastrophobic. It's not too big in terms of
Speaker 2: open spaces, so the passengers love it. If you have
Speaker 2: a fear of flying, you're going to love the three
Speaker 2: eighty because it calms your nerves. If you get onto
Speaker 2: a seven three seven that has up to ninety five
Speaker 2: decibels of noise, then that would really make you nervous,
Speaker 2: even for a takeoff, and it's about eighty five decibels
Speaker 2: and the cruise which is safe for no more than
Speaker 2: eight hours in the workplace. I mean, the seven three
Speaker 2: seven is a great aeroplane, but a first flew before
Speaker 2: Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. You notice first for
Speaker 2: the in nineteen sixty seven, Wow, and the derived versions
Speaker 2: from that, but that core technology. Imagine taking a nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties Ford Mustang and saying what.
Speaker 1: A great car actually was a nine sixty six Ford
Speaker 1: must say? Was it bloody? Your car?
Speaker 2: Great car? Let's keep it, and now let's convert it.
Speaker 2: Just do a few moods over the last forty and
Speaker 2: let's turn it into an F one racing car.
Speaker 1: Right? Okay? Could you would you?
Speaker 2: No? That's what you're right? So the seven three seven
Speaker 2: needs a total rebuild, and there's a lesson. A concept
Speaker 2: in management called constructive destruction, You get rid of things
Speaker 2: to use the new tech to build something newer. You
Speaker 2: don't sit on your laurels. You have to keep changing
Speaker 2: and adapting. That's manufacturing.
Speaker 1: What was the Southwest one of the thi's at Southwest
Speaker 1: or Southwest seven.
Speaker 2: They didn't want constructive destruction. They had six hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty seven three seven I remember it. So they made
Speaker 2: a deal with Boeing that that if we don't want
Speaker 2: to have to do a differences course for all our pilots,
Speaker 2: so we want the same pilots to get one course
Speaker 2: of seven three seven for all those versions since nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven, and we don't want to have a difference's course.
Speaker 2: That gave pressure for Boeing to not change the cockpit.
Speaker 2: It meant they really couldn't bring in fly By wy
Speaker 2: benefits because if they did, they have to change the
Speaker 2: cockpit there'd be a difference's course. So there was actually
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure by Southwest Airlines to have Boeing
Speaker 2: do what they did, which was in retrospect terrible, but
Speaker 2: in any business it's not right. You should you should
Speaker 2: get rid of the old tech and bring in a
Speaker 2: new airbus. Brought in fly By Wy in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: Four fly By Wy fly by Why let.
Speaker 2: Mean in your car, you have you accelerator pedal, you
Speaker 2: push it down and linkages, bell, cranks and cables move
Speaker 2: from that accelerator pedal go to the carburettor to let
Speaker 2: more feel into the car. It's fine, but actually when
Speaker 2: they built the concord, the fuselage stretches one foot in
Speaker 2: the crewise because the aircraft gets so hot, so linkages
Speaker 2: and cables can't stretch one one foot. So they when
Speaker 2: they built the car court they said, we can't use
Speaker 2: these old systems. So they've built a digital action though
Speaker 2: it was an analog fly by Wy. So you have
Speaker 2: a sensor on the accelerator pedal, the sensor signal that
Speaker 2: goes to a distant actuator that will move to change
Speaker 2: the field. Thing.
Speaker 1: Actually this is being opens and closes.
Speaker 2: It opens and closes valve like a valve, a valve.
Speaker 2: It's the thing that a light. So the concept is
Speaker 2: that that you are now separated. There is no direct
Speaker 2: connection other than electrical from the app from what you're
Speaker 2: pressing to what happens at the far end. That gives
Speaker 2: you amazing ability to interfere or intercept that signal a
Speaker 2: value to it or to modify it. So, in terms
Speaker 2: of aircraft, what the pilots do with the thrust levers
Speaker 2: and the side stick, they are inputs into computers that
Speaker 2: massage them. If the computers think you're not doing the
Speaker 2: right thing, they might even override it. The computers in
Speaker 2: an F sixteen F twenty two, F thirty five. If
Speaker 2: the pilots don't evo the ground, the compute and these
Speaker 2: fighter aircraft are meant to be close to the ground.
Speaker 2: But if the computer thinks they're going to hit the ground,
Speaker 2: the computer interferes, takes over and pulls them away from
Speaker 2: the ground. It's an override. Interesting, maybe the pilots in
Speaker 2: Ukraine turned that overright off when they started flying. If
Speaker 2: sixteens in.
Speaker 1: Ukraine, you can't turn that right off.
Speaker 2: A lot of F sixteens were crashing from pilots, and
Speaker 2: particularly in F sixteens, they pull so much g that
Speaker 2: the blood wouldn't get to the head. The blackout and
Speaker 2: if they're close to the ground, they die. So when
Speaker 2: they put in their software to predict whether they'd hit
Speaker 2: the ground and to stop them hitting the ground, or
Speaker 2: to get to a safe place, all the deaths from
Speaker 2: accidental flying into terrain virtually stopped, and that that is
Speaker 2: now accepted software through all the fighters in America. The
Speaker 2: pilots agree that that intervention is actually very good.
Speaker 1: Is there something similar in the commercial world, like an override?
Speaker 1: Not yet? Why not?
Speaker 2: Not yet? Well, even in the Air Force when they
Speaker 2: first tried to introduce this for the fighters in the
Speaker 2: American Air Force in two thousand and five, the pilot said, no,
Speaker 2: we're not going to have a computer takeover from us.
Speaker 2: We don't trust it. And that's what a lot of
Speaker 2: people fear about, let's say AI or computers or fly
Speaker 2: by wy They think they don't want to seed control
Speaker 2: to a computer. And the Air Force sat back for
Speaker 2: about ten years and said, okay, let's see if you
Speaker 2: can stop killing yourself in these f sixteens. They didn't,
Speaker 2: So the Air Force said, okay, we're forcing it on you.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: You will have it. We'll give you feedback as to
Speaker 2: how anxious this software is it. If it's so, you'll
Speaker 2: know if it's about to interrupt. So you've got feedback.
Speaker 2: You're getting facts about what the thing's thinking. And then
Speaker 2: if you still ignore those warnings, it will eventually take over,
Speaker 2: and by twenty fifteen the policy said yes, please, let's
Speaker 2: have it, and now we'll the aircraft have it. So
Speaker 2: again we're talking about fly by wire. The pilots might
Speaker 2: be requesting something the computers interrupt to get you to
Speaker 2: a safe place because maybe you're doing something reckless, or
Speaker 2: maybe you're unconscious and you're about to die. It took
Speaker 2: long time to build up that trust, and in some
Speaker 2: parts of the airbus software they the aircraft will not
Speaker 2: let you stall the aircraft or stalling is when you
Speaker 2: get to such a high angle that the air coming
Speaker 2: of the wing breaks down and you lose lift. So
Speaker 2: the airbus will protect you from high speed or high
Speaker 2: angle of attack. None of the aircraft at the moment
Speaker 2: will interfere and stop you hitting the ground, including the
Speaker 2: A three eighty, any danisial aircraft, any commercial aircraft. Well,
Speaker 2: the problem is, you see, and it has gone wrong
Speaker 2: in one of the A three twenties early on, where
Speaker 2: the software wouldn't reconfigure and the aircraft the soft they
Speaker 2: wouldn't let the pilot land to actually the land the
Speaker 2: A three twenty to shut down an engine. Now that
Speaker 2: makes no sense other than when you shut down the engine,
Speaker 2: you shut off these protections so he could land. I'm
Speaker 2: getting a little bit complicated here, but I'm saying that
Speaker 2: overall all this software works ninety nine point nine nine
Speaker 2: percent of the time perfectly. Sometimes there's glitches. But you know,
Speaker 2: there are five billion people flying every year around the world,
Speaker 2: forty million.
Speaker 1: Fils, so that six sticks standard deviations from the mean,
Speaker 1: which is ninety nine point nine percent of the time.
Speaker 1: If that's applied one in every million, that means I
Speaker 1: may say six billion, how many people are flying each.
Speaker 2: I reckon, we might be I reckon, we might be
Speaker 2: at six seven eighty six. Well that's sort of because
Speaker 2: we're getting you're only having two or three aircraft a
Speaker 2: year crashing. That's about five hundred people. Tragic absolutely for
Speaker 2: the people killed. But for five hundred people that are
Speaker 2: killed out of five billion that fly could work at
Speaker 2: the sigma I just can't do it in my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's well, no, that's it's not even one
Speaker 1: in a million. So yeah, go on, that's good. Then
Speaker 1: it's good. It's beyond what is General Electric, which is
Speaker 1: one of the engine makers. It's beyond their so called
Speaker 1: six sigma test. All right, so in beyond him being better,
Speaker 1: let's imagine you have a fear of flying, and twenty
Speaker 1: percent of the people do. What they need to know
Speaker 1: is facts, because fear is based on not knowing what's
Speaker 1: not knowing who's in charge. You can't forecast the future,
Speaker 1: you can't see at the front of the airplane. You
Speaker 1: don't know who's in charge. Is AI flying aircraft? There's
Speaker 1: no one to talk to, and there's no one to
Speaker 1: communicate with. I mean we're used to that in life.
Speaker 1: If things go wrong with businesses. Now does a website
Speaker 1: for a business even post the telephone number? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, So a lot of people have different anxiety because
Speaker 2: there's no one taking responsibility. There's no one to talk to,
Speaker 2: there's no single point of contact and all these uncertainties
Speaker 2: and maybe there are crashes and it seems unfair and
Speaker 2: you you imagine the worst if you don't know what's
Speaker 2: going on. These are all the vectors for fear based
Speaker 2: on not having facts, so or lack of communication and
Speaker 2: lack of communication. Absolutely, and if you just give the
Speaker 2: reason that things happen, and that's what I guess I'm
Speaker 2: trying to do the reasons, well, you will work out
Speaker 2: then you'll derive. You do the hard way you derive.
Speaker 2: We'll give them these reasons. Yes I am safe. So
Speaker 2: let's I'm going to put it really simply. We talk
Speaker 2: about risk, and risk is probability of that invent times
Speaker 2: a consequence.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Right, Now, let's imagine the consequences the same. Let's imagine
Speaker 2: the consequences you dying, right.
Speaker 1: Well, that that has to be. That's the gravity event occurring, right.
Speaker 2: This is the worst. And now we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about risk, where death is the outcome the consequence. Now,
Speaker 2: so the risk is equal to the probability because the
Speaker 2: consequences constant.
Speaker 1: Frail is much Put that in a bit of different context.
Speaker 1: The probability of event occurring is equal to the gravity
Speaker 1: of the event occurring. No, you're not saying.
Speaker 2: That, no, no, no, The gravity is a consequence a gravity.
Speaker 2: The consequence is what is the outcome when an event happens.
Speaker 2: Events can be probable and possible, and that's definite levels
Speaker 2: of probability of an event happening. But the probability of
Speaker 2: an asteroid coming through this room is very small. But
Speaker 2: if it does, the consequence is probably fatal for you
Speaker 2: in may, right, But the risk is still low because
Speaker 2: not many asteroids come down through your studio. So we
Speaker 2: look at risk. So when you look at risk in
Speaker 2: terms of mortality, there's a thing called a micro mort,
Speaker 2: and I wrote about this in the second book. So
Speaker 2: a micromort is one in a million chance of mortality,
Speaker 2: one in a million chance of dying. When you get
Speaker 2: onto a horse, you have a one in a million
Speaker 2: chance of dying from that exposure. One micromort will let
Speaker 2: you ride a motorbike about eight kilometers. It will you
Speaker 2: use about use about forty thousand micromorts. If you climb
Speaker 2: out Everest, one microwap will take you on four hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty scenic railway things. You know we have the
Speaker 2: roller coasters. They are amazingly safe. Right, So one micromorp
Speaker 2: will get as a horse ride. One micromort will take
Speaker 2: you ten thousand kilometers on a commercial aircraft almost to America.
Speaker 2: Right when you walk into a hospital, the chance of
Speaker 2: you being killed by an accident or an error, not
Speaker 2: because you are ill. The chance of you being killed
Speaker 2: by an accident medical system seven thousand micromorts.
Speaker 1: In other words, the risk comparison is if you want
Speaker 1: to be relaxed about these things. Just look at the
Speaker 1: risk comparison of flying relatives to go walk into a hospital.
Speaker 2: If you want to be scared, be scared of going
Speaker 2: to hospital. I think everyone should have a person to
Speaker 2: be with them, to monitor them, an advocate like one
Speaker 2: of your friends. Have someone there with you because problem
Speaker 2: is in medicine is they don't ask enough questions, they
Speaker 2: don't know enough about you, and they make decisions without
Speaker 2: knowing the facts. Right. So my point is that that
Speaker 2: one hospital missions equivalent to about seventy thousand one hour
Speaker 2: commercial flights.
Speaker 1: Wow, now are you scared.
Speaker 2: I'm giving you reasons, They're giving you facts.
Speaker 1: What's happening now is I'm more scared of going to hospital,
Speaker 1: but I'm still scared of getting on an aeroplane.
Speaker 2: Well, we're looking at we're looking at risk, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: we have to we have the hospital system. There are
Speaker 2: great people, but it's a broken system. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: every they're truly great people in medicine, but a lot
Speaker 2: of the safety measures in aviation. I'm not present in medicine.
Speaker 2: I'm an ambassador for Saint Vincent's Hospital. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: do everything i can and medicine needs help in governance
Speaker 2: and safety.
Speaker 1: So can if we go back to three eighty, the
Speaker 1: A three eighty, which is the Q thirty two flight,
Speaker 1: and you're taking off and one of the engines blows up.
Speaker 1: Let's because I think this is a confidence thing for
Speaker 1: people like me. Can I just want a couple of questions. One,
Speaker 1: is it less risky if I get on a plane
Speaker 1: with four engines? One? That seems to me to be
Speaker 1: the case. I'm asking you the question. Two, what do
Speaker 1: I need? What happens inside the cockpit there? So how
Speaker 1: many people are in there? And let's say you know
Speaker 1: how many people have got to help you in the
Speaker 1: event that one of the engines doesn't as blown up
Speaker 1: as corn fire?
Speaker 2: So safety, Is it more safe with four engines?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Right? Because all all aircraft designed that they lose an engine.
Speaker 2: Then well that's part of the certification. You just assume
Speaker 2: that you're losing an engine at some point. If you
Speaker 2: lose it too early in the takeoff, you have to
Speaker 2: stop the takeoff, but a certain before we actually get
Speaker 2: off the ground, halfway down the runway, if you lose
Speaker 2: an engine, you can stop, and if you have two engines,
Speaker 2: you keep going once you if you get beyond about
Speaker 2: halfway down the runway. This is very general. If you
Speaker 2: lose an engine, you keep going and the performance is
Speaker 2: designed for you to get safely off the ground and
Speaker 2: come back and land with one engine gone. So everything,
Speaker 2: all aviation's predicated on losing one engine. If you're in
Speaker 2: a two engine aircraft and you lose one, now you're
Speaker 2: down to one engine. Now, the engines are actually very reliable.
Speaker 2: They fail about one in every three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand engine hours, so about one in every eight pilots
Speaker 2: of a twin aircraft. We'll see an.
Speaker 1: Engine failure in the whole twin engine aircraft twin.
Speaker 2: One in four pilots of a quad aeroplane, because if
Speaker 2: you have four engines, you've got twice. It's the probability
Speaker 2: of having an engine failure as a twin pilot because
Speaker 2: you've got four engines. The thing is that losing one
Speaker 2: engine in a quad nothing is nothing you really it's trivial.
Speaker 2: Losing in a twin of a lot more serious. But
Speaker 2: aviation these days, the problem in aircraft tend to occur
Speaker 2: with passengers. They get sick, they get on with drugs, alcohol, stress,
Speaker 2: the business class passengers generally cause more commotion and trouble
Speaker 2: than the economy passengers. They come on more stressed. Maybe
Speaker 2: there's a problem with wars. Politics have to divert around airspace.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's a problem with the weather. I'm just saying
Speaker 2: that engine failures that used to be common on aircraft
Speaker 2: and not common anymore. And as I said, one in
Speaker 2: eight twin pilots will ever see an engine failure in
Speaker 2: the whole career.
Speaker 1: And your qre thoo two, what was what? You had
Speaker 1: one engine down out of four engines? Yes, what happened?
Speaker 1: What did it like?
Speaker 2: So? A little oil pipe there was to take oil
Speaker 2: to a bearing mount inside the most inner part of
Speaker 2: the engine. That pipe had been manufactured incorrectly. It cracked
Speaker 2: because of vibration. Oil went into a part of the
Speaker 2: engine that should not have had any oil into it,
Speaker 2: sitting about eight hundred degrees celsius. That the oil catches fire,
Speaker 2: heats the drive shaft, makes it soft, and the turbine
Speaker 2: that has been taking fifty thousand horsepower out of the
Speaker 2: air and now rips itself off that shaft because the
Speaker 2: metal's weak. The turbine weighs one hundred and sixty kilograms
Speaker 2: high tensile steel. Physics say breaks into three pieces, and
Speaker 2: ours broken too. A few more three pieces hit the aircraft.
Speaker 2: In our case, that created shrapnel. About four hundred impacts
Speaker 2: on the airplane from all the shrapnel, two hundred against
Speaker 2: the fuselage. There were holes in There were holes inside
Speaker 2: the wing, to the wing, on top of the wing,
Speaker 2: fuels gushing out. Hydraulics is coming out.
Speaker 1: Fewer is coming out.
Speaker 2: Fuels pouring out through the holes inside the wing and
Speaker 2: on above and a bottom below the wing, so that
Speaker 2: these pieces were going through aluminium. This thick fifteen mealstick
Speaker 2: through a fuel tank five feet deep and fueled through
Speaker 2: another aluminium panel. Fifteen meals thick. When airbusts design the
Speaker 2: aircraft to take a rotorburst, which is what we've got,
Speaker 2: they assume that piece of the disc, which you can
Speaker 2: never contain, has infinite energy. I'm sorry if this is
Speaker 2: scaring you, but now you won't be scared because they say,
Speaker 2: that's okay. We just assume we can't stop it. But
Speaker 2: we offset the engines so the one exploding engine doesn't
Speaker 2: take out the other one. And we designed the air
Speaker 2: crafts and no matter what happens with those pieces of shrapnel.
Speaker 2: We've got backup systems, right. So in our case, those
Speaker 2: three pieces that hit the aircraft took out six hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty wires, knocked out half of our networks. Out
Speaker 2: of twenty two systems, twenty one were affected. And when
Speaker 2: you break down in your car driving home, you'll get
Speaker 2: out and fix it, won't you. You're don electronic car. No,
Speaker 2: you can't. You can't. You have to call the anrama
Speaker 2: or a friend. We can't do that. But we have
Speaker 2: an electronic networked fly by wire aircraft. Half the network's
Speaker 2: now broken and we have to now work out what
Speaker 2: we're going to get at the end of the flight. Now,
Speaker 2: there are five pilots in the cockpits on this flight.
Speaker 2: There were two extra captains, three captains. I'm the pilot
Speaker 2: in charge, pilot in command, and we had a first
Speaker 2: officer and a second officer. We pulled our brains. We
Speaker 2: work together. This is not like a committee in a
Speaker 2: meeting where you might have three chairs. You know, you'd
Speaker 2: have to be afraid if you went to a meeting
Speaker 2: with three chairmen, right, Nothing would happen on an aircraft.
Speaker 2: It's different. There's a pilot in command. We had two
Speaker 2: other captains. Everyone pulls their resources. We merge our brains
Speaker 2: into a super brain. We work as a cohesive effective team. Problems.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows their responsible to allocate.
Speaker 1: Do you allocate? Does everyone have an.
Speaker 2: All allocate it? And before the flight, when I was
Speaker 2: telling the other pilot, the first officer and the second
Speaker 2: officer before the flight, I said, we have two extra
Speaker 2: captains on board. They're actually checking my license. They will
Speaker 2: either renew my license at the end of this flight
Speaker 2: or they will cancel it because I have to go
Speaker 2: into training. I said, that's my problem. My license check
Speaker 2: is my problem, It's not yours. The important thing is
Speaker 2: the passengers. So you must tell me if I do
Speaker 2: something wrong. Don't worry about my check, and don't let
Speaker 2: those pilots distract you said, in aviation, we have seven
Speaker 2: checks a year, which is like getting a driving license
Speaker 2: test with a police commissioner in the back. Seven times
Speaker 2: a year, we are checked so thoroughly. You know, you
Speaker 2: worried about an engine failing, But when a pilot lines
Speaker 2: up to take off the runway, his heart rate's probably
Speaker 2: going up a bit like Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong's heart
Speaker 2: rate when he's coming into land on the moon got
Speaker 2: to a better hundred and sixty. Not because he was afraid,
Speaker 2: but because he was aware of all the things that
Speaker 2: could go wrong. And now he's organizing at different times,
Speaker 2: different things can go wrong. He's arranging all these possibilities
Speaker 2: and then working out, Okay, I'm getting ready, what happens
Speaker 2: if this, what happens? If that, what do I do?
Speaker 2: And so he's very mindful, very busy, very alert. The
Speaker 2: heartbreak goes up. Same for pilots. Before takeoffs. There are
Speaker 2: seven different areas and during a takeoff, before you leave
Speaker 2: the runway, seven different points of which pilots have to
Speaker 2: be preconditioned to act almost instantly on any plane, on
Speaker 2: all the commercial plane. Commercial very complex and you have
Speaker 2: to think. And so during the takeoff you are moving
Speaker 2: from phase to phase to phase, and your response is
Speaker 2: going to be different. You've got to be sharp. The
Speaker 2: heart rates up, but not from fear. They're not anxious.
Speaker 2: They have a chronic unease for the status quo. Every takeoff.
Speaker 2: They're expecting an engine to fail, right, that's skeptical, that's
Speaker 2: but they're ready.
Speaker 1: I'd rather they're ready for the.
Speaker 2: Engine fail and if it happens to go bang, you know,
Speaker 2: and everyone's ready. Everyone understands, they're they're ready for an
Speaker 2: engine failure at any time. If you've ever flown on
Speaker 2: a helicopter, look at the pilot. They have windows down
Speaker 2: there their feet and they're often looking down through that.
Speaker 1: It's scary.
Speaker 2: That's where they're going if the engine fails.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've been like it was plenty of times, and
Speaker 1: I've decided I'm ever going to oar on helicopter.
Speaker 2: But my point is that that we train the things
Speaker 2: that might scare us, We train the difficult things. So
Speaker 2: number one, it doesn't scare us. Two they become habits,
Speaker 2: and three we become resilient when things go wrong. We
Speaker 2: don't suffer the fear response, maybe like the passengers.
Speaker 1: So okay, what could that that was important with that
Speaker 1: resilient piece. So so therefore you're making yourself resilient. Maybe
Speaker 1: explain to me, because this could be equally applied to
Speaker 1: business all sorts of things. So what is it that
Speaker 1: you believe that you do and practice and or pilots
Speaker 1: do and practice every time there's a takeoff there's landing
Speaker 1: that makes them resilient? Take me through that process.
Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, we can have success, right, everyone's success,
Speaker 2: And we can have great CEOs that are great because
Speaker 2: they've never had a crisis. There are fair weather CEOs
Speaker 2: to think, how do they get there? Because it's been good,
Speaker 2: they've successful, they've never been charged. Not resilient, right, resilience
Speaker 2: assume something goes wrong. So even if you're a successful
Speaker 2: CEO that's never done anything wrong, your resilience is only
Speaker 2: tested when things go wrong. So we assume something goes wrong,
Speaker 2: we have to recover from the problem, come back to
Speaker 2: where we were to recover, and then ideally we come
Speaker 2: back stronger. Ideally we learn from our failures. You know,
Speaker 2: that's what Branson said, if I was successful, it's because
Speaker 2: of all the failures along the way. You might think
Speaker 2: the same thing. You know, Dick Smith said he's successful
Speaker 2: because the first thing to happen to him in business
Speaker 2: was he nearly went bankrupt. So if you learn from
Speaker 2: the errors, whether they're mental or physical, or in the
Speaker 2: business errors or even national errors, you come back, you recover,
Speaker 2: but ideally you get stronger. So that's resilience, and we
Speaker 2: all want to be resilient and resilience applies to us personally, corporately, nationally,
Speaker 2: and existentially. Right, climate change might be an existential risk.
Speaker 2: People need to be resilient from the time they're born
Speaker 2: until the time they die, and so we need to
Speaker 2: bring up kids that are resilient. In other words, we
Speaker 2: need to expose them to the threats or the risks
Speaker 2: that we were exposed to when we were young that
Speaker 2: made us great. And I can say that, but just
Speaker 2: about everyone listening to this podcast probably didn't let the
Speaker 2: kids write to school. You know, I have a relative
Speaker 2: that won't let their child walk up some stairs, right,
Speaker 2: they have to go take the lift because they can't
Speaker 2: risk walking up the stairs. So if we overprotect our children,
Speaker 2: if we stop them discovering threats and handle them, if
Speaker 2: we stopped them failing learning and adjusting, then they will
Speaker 2: not be resilient. And then in fact, they become then
Speaker 2: scared of life. They become anxious, unsure. So the fear
Speaker 2: that you talk about maybe people having a fear of flying,
Speaker 2: some people who were not resilient have a fear of life,
Speaker 2: and that's anxiousness. It's a lack of confidence. It's a
Speaker 2: lack of confidence gives courage to be intrepid and fearless.
Speaker 2: You know, this world's full of disruptions and change, so
Speaker 2: many disruptions, AI, energy, transport elements, whether everything, politics, How
Speaker 2: disruptive is politics at the moment. So our world is
Speaker 2: changed and we must adapt or will perish, because equally
Speaker 2: bring is a precursor to death. Now if we have
Speaker 2: to change in addust, we have to make decisions in
Speaker 2: areas where we don't have a whole lot of information,
Speaker 2: So we're going to make wrong decisions. The problem is
Speaker 2: not making wrong decisions, the problem is recognizing it and
Speaker 2: changing it quickly, adaptations, adapting right people. People are not
Speaker 2: measured by failure these days, are measured by how they
Speaker 2: respond to failure, which is really sort of resilience. So
Speaker 2: we need to train our kids to identify, manage rate,
Speaker 2: live with risk, and to be fearless to take risks,
Speaker 2: just as you did. And I think that's where we've
Speaker 2: let our younger generations down.
Speaker 3: And so can I ask another question just about just
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to keep going back to what's going on
Speaker 3: in the cockpit, but the so just on that example,
Speaker 3: you had two other captains there who were assessing you
Speaker 3: at this stage, but you mentioned you had the the
Speaker 3: other two people, what do you call those.
Speaker 2: Check They were actually check captains. They were they were training.
Speaker 2: They were captains who were there.
Speaker 1: To check what you do. But what were the other
Speaker 1: two guys were?
Speaker 2: The first officer?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do they do?
Speaker 2: Matt Matt Hicks was in the right hand seat. He's
Speaker 2: a first officer. He is a pilot, he's a There
Speaker 2: were five pilots in the cockpit. Myself, I'm the pilot
Speaker 2: in command. Captain Matt is in my right hand seat.
Speaker 2: He does things that I asked him to do. But
Speaker 2: we have for sandord operator.
Speaker 1: He is a pilot nonetheless.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, fully, he had ten thousand hours, he was experienced.
Speaker 2: Mark Johnson, the second officer who's also in my crew,
Speaker 2: he had about six thousand hours. He had been flying.
Speaker 1: Also also pilot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's the most junior rank, right, the second officer,
Speaker 2: the most junior pilot in the cockpit. Hit me flying
Speaker 2: F one eleven's and hercules in the Air Force. Right now,
Speaker 2: This is the thing. Not all companies are the same,
Speaker 2: are they right? Right? Some companies fail. Not all airlines
Speaker 2: are the same. And in quantas they employed pilots with experience,
Speaker 2: proven history, and they're exceptional, right, So even my second officer,
Speaker 2: Mark Johnson, extraordinary experience and we now work together as
Speaker 2: a team of three. Now we're being checked by the
Speaker 2: other two pilots, so.
Speaker 1: They're still checking him that the engine blew up or
Speaker 1: do they get involved.
Speaker 2: They they once the engine fails, they canceled the check
Speaker 2: and they said, now we're coming in to help you.
Speaker 2: They're supernumery pilots, so don't have a role as such.
Speaker 2: There's no there's no procedures for five pilots and a cockpit,
Speaker 2: so they just came in to assist, right, And I
Speaker 2: told Harry, one of those captains, if all the pilots
Speaker 2: are looking up, you look down. If we're all looking down,
Speaker 2: you look up, right, because sometimes people.
Speaker 1: So you had to take control. Let's call it control.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm the PA. I'm responsible for the safety of the passengers,
Speaker 2: the aircraft, the cargo, the crew, a whole lot. If
Speaker 2: someone dies, those pilots aren't pulled up into the court
Speaker 2: to explain why I.
Speaker 1: Am yep, yep. So you're so, you're so, how does
Speaker 1: someone how do you feel as though you were able
Speaker 1: to do that? What was it you've done in your past.
Speaker 1: Let's let's park or extract from you what is a
Speaker 1: natural instinct and or a natural skill or a natural talent.
Speaker 1: Was there anything that you've done in your past in
Speaker 1: terms of day to day practice or awareness or whatever
Speaker 1: allowed you to be the person in charge as opposed
Speaker 1: to just because it.
Speaker 2: Is a really good question, and because if you understand
Speaker 2: that background, then you can explain why things happened. On
Speaker 2: q F thirty two people asked the same question. So
Speaker 2: I had to write the second book, which I call
Speaker 2: The Elements of Resilience. I had to work out because
Speaker 2: a lot of the answers to these questions go back
Speaker 2: to how you read as a child. I rode motorbikes
Speaker 2: through the bush. I tell we're about ten years of age,
Speaker 2: and I tell my dad we're going off of the
Speaker 2: day into a state forest of three hundred square miles,
Speaker 2: And I said, you see your dinner.
Speaker 1: That's only you.
Speaker 2: We're off with riding motorbikes. Didn't know where we were going,
Speaker 2: didn't other than them to the three hundred.
Speaker 1: Scare mean like you. Let Dad allowed you to do
Speaker 1: that too, right.
Speaker 2: But the bikes broke down. We ended up in hospital
Speaker 2: a few times, and we had to repair the bikes,
Speaker 2: had to maintain them. It gave us all these skills
Speaker 2: of knowledge, and it gave us a whole lot of experience,
Speaker 2: both mental and physical physical skills to really manue the
Speaker 2: motorbike hard and to push your body. You're getting out
Speaker 2: of control, out of your comfort zone. You have to recover.
Speaker 2: Riding motorbikes when I was young and getting filthy, dirty
Speaker 2: and cold and wet was a great, a really a
Speaker 2: critical part of my early past. So to answer some
Speaker 2: of the questions, I have to go back that far
Speaker 2: to the motorbikes. So the second book about resilience, I
Speaker 2: identify eight elements. Now just bear with me because this
Speaker 2: applies to you personally, corporately, nationally. Right knowledge, you've got
Speaker 2: to know something. You've got to learn and you train,
Speaker 2: you got to you got to commit to a lifetime
Speaker 2: of learning and change.
Speaker 1: To just go back knowledge. So your knowledge about your
Speaker 1: subject matter a broad knowledge. Then you've got to continue
Speaker 1: updating about the subject matter.
Speaker 2: You've got to know information down to its core. It's
Speaker 2: getting hard today because we've got black boxes. We don't understand.
Speaker 2: But if you don't understand the black box. Don't be
Speaker 2: afraid of it. You must know how to turn it off,
Speaker 2: which blacks box to turn off, and how to turn
Speaker 2: it off. That applies in aircraft with that many problems
Speaker 2: in aircraft because people don't know which computers to turn
Speaker 2: off when they break. If you have a car with
Speaker 2: a start button, almost know people know how to turn
Speaker 2: that off. If that car misbehaves when it's moving. Now,
Speaker 2: when it's stopped, you just press the start stop and
Speaker 2: the car engine stops. It won't do that when you're moving.
Speaker 2: My point is everyone in the car should know if
Speaker 2: their car misbehaves to how do you turn off that engine?
Speaker 1: I don't know you how do you do it?
Speaker 2: Do you want me to? You can google it, but
Speaker 2: no one knows. That a good point and no one knows. Okay,
Speaker 2: what do you do? It varies with the car company.
Speaker 2: But you either have to hold a button in and
Speaker 2: hold it for five seconds or you hit it five
Speaker 2: times quickly because you don't want to put your knee
Speaker 2: up against the button in the cruise and suddenly turn
Speaker 2: your car off, so they try and avoid your engine
Speaker 2: shutting down. My point is knowledge is knowing your systems,
Speaker 2: and even if you don't understand the black boxes, know
Speaker 2: how to turn them off, and that will save you
Speaker 2: many times. You know, Knowledge is knowing because spread most
Speaker 2: spreadsheets are probably wrong with the calculation. Knowledge is having
Speaker 2: a sense of reasonableness to know when your spreadsheets wrong,
Speaker 2: when something's wrong. Knowledge is hard eth work. It will
Speaker 2: never stop. And even when you graduate from university as
Speaker 2: a surgeon, if you don't keep up your skills, you'll
Speaker 2: drift slowly, drift to failure. You have to change, adapt,
Speaker 2: learn new systems.
Speaker 1: Right, that's two.
Speaker 2: That's knowledge and training. How to learn? How's the best
Speaker 2: way to train? In the Air Force? We this is
Speaker 2: we're up to two now training. What's the best way
Speaker 2: to teach someone? You think, well, you think, well, I've
Speaker 2: taught my kids. I know how to change. Well, maybe
Speaker 2: some kids were taught how to swim by being thrown
Speaker 2: into the water. Is that a good way to swim?
Speaker 2: Or should you say watch me swim that. I'm going
Speaker 2: to direct you through the maneuvers and then when you're
Speaker 2: finally confident you can do it yourself. That's the way
Speaker 2: the Air Force trains people demonstrate direct monitor works really well?
Speaker 2: Or do you you know there are a thousand ways,
Speaker 2: but what way works best. I'm friends with a wonderful
Speaker 2: pianist called Constantine Shamray, and he plays all around the world.
Speaker 2: He puts in two hours of practice every day. It's
Speaker 2: called deliberate deliberate practice.
Speaker 1: It's the stuff purposeful hard.
Speaker 2: You're getting feedback so that you aresting you have to
Speaker 2: do things outside your comfort zone. It won't be easy,
Speaker 2: it won't be pleasant, but you've got to do it.
Speaker 1: He's not playing America Room, is he? He's playing like
Speaker 1: he's actually doing with a purpose and attention, but actually
Speaker 1: copping feedback from people listening to him.
Speaker 2: Correct. And he does that every day and he's now
Speaker 2: coming up to fifties.
Speaker 1: That's Malcolm Gladwell's ten thousand hours of purpose.
Speaker 2: He's simplified it to ten per.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is about purposeful practice as practice.
Speaker 2: Correct. Now. Now, you could have a pilot that does
Speaker 2: deliberate practice. This is a simulator check where they fail
Speaker 2: the engine and they say yes, you pass, and he
Speaker 2: goes oooh, that's scared the hell out of me. I
Speaker 2: don't I never want to see that again. Now that
Speaker 2: is insufficient. If you're learning, you want to practice something
Speaker 2: until you can repeat it. In the military, they have
Speaker 2: to practice the things that are really scary so that
Speaker 2: the soldiers are not scared when they see it. Right. Look,
Speaker 2: if you have an interview an sas soldier I did
Speaker 2: last week, you'll notice how calm they are. They're not
Speaker 2: excitable because nothing can excite them. They're a migdaler in
Speaker 2: their fear circuits, being almost shut down because they're confident
Speaker 2: they can handle anything. Right, So you ideally want to
Speaker 2: practice these things until they don't stress you. So I
Speaker 2: call that stress proof deliberate practice. If we train those
Speaker 2: hard engine failse or the things that if we get
Speaker 2: you up into an aeroplane until we not just conquer
Speaker 2: your fear, but you actually love being flying, love flying again,
Speaker 2: then that you now have stress proof deliberate practice to
Speaker 2: achieve that. So how with no knowledge, training experience experience
Speaker 2: is critical when you graduate as a part as a driver,
Speaker 2: you're driving test, you've passed, but you're not a racing
Speaker 2: car driver. You are you are proficient, but you're not competent.
Speaker 2: When you want to have an eye operation, do you
Speaker 2: go to the doctor that's just come out of the university,
Speaker 2: or do you go to the eye doctor that's done
Speaker 2: ten thousand operations right. Experience is important. You can't be
Speaker 2: competent unless you are have experience. And this I get
Speaker 2: major arguments with people over this. They think anyone who's
Speaker 2: passed a test is perfect. No experience count.
Speaker 1: That's theory, as the practicality is the experience counts next step.
Speaker 2: Experience can be a curse. I'm sure you know many
Speaker 2: people who've got so much experience now they get confident,
Speaker 2: conceded over confident hubris. When you ever mentioned the word
Speaker 2: hubris with someone, that's before they're going to fail, and
Speaker 2: you see it in the media, Hubris is the indicator
Speaker 2: of emminent failure. So experience can be a curse. Knowledge, training, experience, teamwork.
Speaker 2: Individuals will always fail. An individual will never be resilient
Speaker 2: because failure is part of the human condition. Teams can together,
Speaker 2: Teams can be resilient together. Teams can do remarkable things.
Speaker 2: Q F thirty two was a team effort. It was
Speaker 2: only successful because of the team. If you're not a
Speaker 2: team player, you are not resilient. So knowledge, train, experience, teamwork,
Speaker 2: leadership many types of leaders. The leaders to change leaders
Speaker 2: for things that don't change so much. You know, production lines.
Speaker 2: I think the main thing is each person has to
Speaker 2: find the leader they want to mimic that the leader
Speaker 2: they respect. Look for the traits in them. See if
Speaker 2: they can you can repeat them. Did you have a
Speaker 2: mentor a couple? Did you have someone you looked up?
Speaker 2: Who who's the leader that you expired.
Speaker 1: To the most or Kerry Packerho was my partner. So
Speaker 1: he did for the four years four and a half
Speaker 1: years I was involved in. I was in partnership with him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I aspired to be him in.
Speaker 2: Did he mentor you?
Speaker 1: He wouldn't. He didn't offer to mentor me, but I
Speaker 1: used him as a mentor. Okay, it's probably been a
Speaker 1: way pretty on.
Speaker 2: You tell me if I'm wrong. Particularly, he didn't tell
Speaker 2: me what to do, particularly CEOs chairs. It's a lonely
Speaker 2: life totally.
Speaker 1: He didn't tell what to do. He just asked me questions.
Speaker 2: But it's alone the life. You don't want to admit
Speaker 2: you don't know someone, You don't ask anyone. You're alone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so even the chairs and the CEOs needed mental
Speaker 2: I think everyone needs a mentor in their life at
Speaker 2: every stage.
Speaker 1: I did it buy observation, though I more watched what
Speaker 1: he did, and he was pretty brutal questioner. So he
Speaker 1: never believed anything you said, and he would question you
Speaker 1: for hours.
Speaker 2: He wanted the facts, did he want the reference?
Speaker 1: He would just he just wanted to check that you
Speaker 1: knew the facts. And he would actually the same thing
Speaker 1: fifty different ways over hours.
Speaker 2: He sounds like an Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: He was very good.
Speaker 2: Elon must assumes nothing. You have to give facts through that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he carried, didn't believe anything, You just onto, onto, onto,
Speaker 1: you know. For me, that's what I believe is the
Speaker 1: best way of being a mentor is that you ask questions,
Speaker 1: don't give answers.
Speaker 2: All Right. The thing that I find simplest about leadership
Speaker 2: is the most important two important things. And I'm repeating
Speaker 2: John Howard here. He said the most important thing in
Speaker 2: leadership is your values. That will determine how you think,
Speaker 2: act and communicate. If you have the wrong values, or
Speaker 2: if you don't have any value, if you don't have.
Speaker 1: Any values, or if you don't know what they are,
Speaker 1: if you have an articulate.
Speaker 2: You know, we've had many prime ministers that haven't lasted
Speaker 2: long in the last fifteen years because you don't know
Speaker 2: what their values are, and they change that unpredictable. You
Speaker 2: can't trust them, right, And because of that, and their
Speaker 2: second rule for a leader was to keep those you
Speaker 2: lead really tight. Keep those ones you you immediately manage
Speaker 2: like as though they're Dyna ditch for you, right, And
Speaker 2: particularly saying the Hawk Keating Howard years, they had the
Speaker 2: most wonderful teams. I think they're some of the.
Speaker 1: Howard Alli's and a Downer and Peter Costello who were
Speaker 1: like just so and Ja Hockey like they never left
Speaker 1: your side, yeah, unbelieved.
Speaker 2: They dine and ditched for it and they were great teams.
Speaker 2: And the Hawk Howard were amazing managing directors of the
Speaker 2: country right, with the most extraordinary team. And that's what
Speaker 2: we lost in the latest prime ministers. They get stabbed
Speaker 2: by their immediate juniors. It's terrible. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. These things about resilience just don't apply personally.
Speaker 2: It applies right up nationally. And it's the same elements
Speaker 2: of resilience, So knowledge, train, experienced, teamwork, leadership, decision making.
Speaker 2: A lot of resilience comes from being prepared. You look
Speaker 2: at all your threats to the risk, you build up
Speaker 2: your standard procedures, you build up your risk management profiles,
Speaker 2: you come up with policy in your plans, and so
Speaker 2: when something goes wrong like a pandemic, hopefully you're prepared
Speaker 2: for it. Right. You just bring the team together and
Speaker 2: your action when you're actioning, actioning coming together. If you
Speaker 2: have set up properly from a crisis, the only thing
Speaker 2: that happens after that crisis starts is you make the
Speaker 2: decisions that are dynamic. And there are eight ways to
Speaker 2: make decisions, coming from your instincts and habits to intuition.
Speaker 2: There's a thing called urduloup. There's very complex decision making processes.
Speaker 2: So decision making, and particularly in a crisis, where a
Speaker 2: decision now that's eighty percent correct is much better than
Speaker 2: a perfect decision tomorrow. Right, So decision making is a
Speaker 2: critical element resilient some people. I mean, the most frustrating
Speaker 2: pilot is one that can't make a decision. Have you
Speaker 2: seen people of business a company decisions? Are they frustrating?
Speaker 1: They don't last long with me?
Speaker 2: So well, they last long in many big companies. It's
Speaker 2: amazing their last long. But they're afraid of making decisions.
Speaker 2: So that's element crisis management because life is We're going
Speaker 2: to be perseptariate crisis faster and deeper than ever before.
Speaker 2: Many people thought, well, we've had about fifteen crises in
Speaker 2: the last twenty five years, surely that's the end of it. No,
Speaker 2: the world's so disruptive that are going to come harder
Speaker 2: and faster at a great rate one hundred. So we
Speaker 2: have to be absolutely understand the crisis management of how
Speaker 2: to run that, and then risk. Risk is the last
Speaker 2: element of resilience.
Speaker 1: You've got to This is your eighth element. This is
Speaker 1: your eighth element.
Speaker 2: Eight identify rate and live with it. You have to
Speaker 2: take risk, you have to, but you take intelligent risks.
Speaker 2: All risks have a mitigation in case that don't work,
Speaker 2: you've got to back up. If you take a risk
Speaker 2: without a mitigation, without any backup, that's called a gamble.
Speaker 2: And if you take a gamble that might kill you,
Speaker 2: then you're probably going to die. Right the gamble is
Speaker 2: put on all of your life savings on red at
Speaker 2: a casino where you might lose it all. So, and
Speaker 2: it's surprising how many people don't understand risk and gambling
Speaker 2: and things like that. We must take risks, but do
Speaker 2: intelligent risks, and.
Speaker 1: You inform risks is what I call. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I get.
Speaker 2: It, knowledgeable risks. Yeah, you make decisions. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: you look at the tennis players. The difference between Roger
Speaker 2: Federer and Nadal in a game is almost negligible. It
Speaker 2: might be forty you know, it might be forty nine
Speaker 2: percent great shots to fifty one, and they're managing the risk.
Speaker 2: Even if they're going down. They say, all right, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm losing the game, but I've got to got to
Speaker 2: keep playing the way I can. I just there's nothing
Speaker 2: wrong with it. I just have to persist. I have
Speaker 2: to understand the risks and keep the game plan. So, yes,
Speaker 2: you have to understand the threats and measure the risk
Speaker 2: and then work with the risk. If you don't, if
Speaker 2: you just work with threats, then you are fearful, right
Speaker 2: because a mouse might scare you because that scares women.
Speaker 2: Going flying might scare you because some people die. But
Speaker 2: if you can take that threat and they'w move it
Speaker 2: into probability and consequence, you measure the risk, you'd realize, well,
Speaker 2: the mice don't kill any people, so ignore that. And
Speaker 2: even flying an aeroplane is safer than going into a hospital.
Speaker 2: So measurement of risk will give you guidance as to
Speaker 2: well confidence. You see, when a pilot moves a thrust
Speaker 2: leavers up to take off an aeroplane, they're taking off
Speaker 2: into the unknown. They've got an eight three eighty has
Speaker 2: four million parts, four hundred million dollars, a thousand computers,
Speaker 2: and I didn't make them. I don't know how they
Speaker 2: all work. You trust the people, the engineers, and everyone
Speaker 2: did a good job. But things happen. Life is unfair,
Speaker 2: Terrible things happen, and so the pilot as he takes
Speaker 2: off has this chronic unease. It's not anxiety, it's not fear.
Speaker 2: He's got this chronic uncertainty. But he's prepared for things
Speaker 2: going wrong. So we do go. Now, this is the
Speaker 2: critical thing it was. Alan Joyce told the conference many
Speaker 2: years ago he said pilots were procedural leaders. They followed checklists.
Speaker 2: Now that's true for about ninety percent of the occasions.
Speaker 2: What he missed was that for that last ten percent,
Speaker 2: which involves passengers, politics, wars, the pilot's doing the last
Speaker 2: ten percent is solving problems, and the problem doesn't exist
Speaker 2: in a standard operating procedure the pilot has to create
Speaker 2: a novel solution to something they've never seen before. So
Speaker 2: they have to use all these eight elements of resilience
Speaker 2: to think up a novel solution that no one's thought
Speaker 2: of to solve the problem because they can't call for help.
Speaker 2: They can't. And so it's this combination of knowing the
Speaker 2: standard operating procedures when things are good and having the
Speaker 2: skill to create a novel solution when things go crazy
Speaker 2: or black Swan events nine to eleven. This is what
Speaker 2: pilots are taught. This is what resilience is. And when
Speaker 2: you have that feeling, then you can take on anything
Speaker 2: that life throws at you. You have the confidence and
Speaker 2: the courage. You might fail a little bit, but then
Speaker 2: you can adjust and retry. Right. So, and that's a
Speaker 2: feeling that I called in my second book a feeling
Speaker 2: of being bulletproof not gun shy, right, bulletproof not gun shy.
Speaker 2: It's the sheriff that walks out in front of the gunslinger,
Speaker 2: and the sheriff says, I've done all the training. I'm
Speaker 2: looking for his body movement. I've got professional training. I
Speaker 2: can beat this amateur gunslinger. And he does. So the
Speaker 2: feeling that when you've got these elements of resilience, you
Speaker 2: can take on these threats knowing that you'll succeed. This
Speaker 2: is what fither pilots have when they can launch in
Speaker 2: a single seaty craft across enemy territory at night. You know,
Speaker 2: how could you ever build up a confidence to do
Speaker 2: that if it wasn't you know, a decade of training
Speaker 2: and building up all those skills in resilience. So the
Speaker 2: aim is that all these people, from children to businesses,
Speaker 2: they all build up these elements of resilience and then
Speaker 2: you're confident that you can face whatever life gives it.
Speaker 1: You tell me about your podcast fly.
Speaker 2: Well, the book The Elements of Resilience has been a success.
Speaker 2: I now toll the world talking about resilience. I talk
Speaker 2: to medical groups.
Speaker 1: I talk to have guests as a guest base.
Speaker 2: Well, sorry, I haven't got to that yet. I talk
Speaker 2: to people who clear runways of snow. I talked to banks,
Speaker 2: and those talks are and I talk about resilience. They've
Speaker 2: been received very well. So now I've got a podcast
Speaker 2: and I bring in different leads of different parts of
Speaker 2: different industries and I talk about first question, what's your
Speaker 2: definition resilience, and then the second question, how do we
Speaker 2: achieve it or what's the problem. So I'm talking to
Speaker 2: psychiatrists about children and why they're anxious and how we
Speaker 2: can solve that. I'm talking to educators on the best
Speaker 2: way for schools to educate children because I don't think
Speaker 2: we've been achieving the maximum benefit for each individual. We
Speaker 2: talk about military resilience and national resilience. You know, at
Speaker 2: the moment, we have about twenty one to thirty days
Speaker 2: of gasoline and diesel in the country. Now, how many
Speaker 2: Jerry cans of petrol and diesel do you have at home?
Speaker 2: You don't have to answer that question. A lot of
Speaker 2: people will think, well, I've never thought of that, But
Speaker 2: in the seventies when we couldn't get oil, we did. No.
Speaker 2: I think you still should because we just need. You see,
Speaker 2: the ninety five percent of our oil comes to Australia
Speaker 2: from foreign owned ships. If those foreign companies decide they
Speaker 2: don't want to bring it to Australia, are twenty one
Speaker 2: days is they're going to be declining. It's not just
Speaker 2: twenty one day for you to drive the kids to school,
Speaker 2: it's twenty one days for the farmer to have a
Speaker 2: tractor making you food, and if he makes it, it's
Speaker 2: twenty one days for the freight company to get it
Speaker 2: to the market, and so the whole resilience of the
Speaker 2: country might come down to twenty one days of diesel. Remember,
Speaker 2: we nearly ran out of the ad Blue last year,
Speaker 2: which means the truck's virtually shut down. You have to
Speaker 2: look at all the critical assets in a country, which
Speaker 2: is military, fuel, energy.
Speaker 1: And just general transport systems.
Speaker 2: Well, critical things that if you don't have it, it stops.
Speaker 2: You know, we're the biggest maker of opium, are thirty
Speaker 2: We produced thirty percent of the world's opium and yet
Speaker 2: and we could turn that into morphine, but we have
Speaker 2: to bring it from China, and we nearly ran out
Speaker 2: of morphine two years ago, so we couldn't give operations
Speaker 2: and hospitals. These are critical things that the country must protect,
Speaker 2: regardless of the cost. We were about fifteen refinery is
Speaker 2: the turn of the century making hydrocarbon fuels. Now we're
Speaker 2: down to two and they'll shut down in twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2: How resilient are we going to be then? I mean
Speaker 2: these are national resilience is critical. How long would we
Speaker 2: last in a war against our key adversary. Well why why, Well,
Speaker 2: it's down to the ours, really don't it's less than
Speaker 2: twenty four hours. But then if that's what we're worried about,
Speaker 2: why have we got increasing dependence on that country ninety
Speaker 2: five sorry, thirty five percent, and it's increasing of our
Speaker 2: jet fuel for our aircraft come from China, and it's
Speaker 2: increasing where the piecing increasing are dependency on China at
Speaker 2: a time when we're also thinking that they're a higher risk.
Speaker 2: And you might say, well, that's not a problem because
Speaker 2: the military get all their oil and fuel reserves from
Speaker 2: their own supplies. No military gets all their fuel from
Speaker 2: the civil supplies. They have no stock taking. So that's
Speaker 2: why this topic of resilience is so important, and.
Speaker 1: At a national level, at a personal level, at a
Speaker 1: business level, at a hospital level.
Speaker 2: I'm interviewing John Howard's coming on. I'd love to interview
Speaker 2: you about it.
Speaker 1: John, I here last week, Actually did you yeah, sit
Speaker 1: in the broad there?
Speaker 2: He wrote a page in my second book. I have
Speaker 2: the highest respect for John Howard. He was a wonderful
Speaker 2: managing director of the country. He took great risks, didn't
Speaker 2: he to get in He brought in the GST and
Speaker 2: then he brought in a gun restrictions gun restriction. You see,
Speaker 2: he was driven by values. He he thought he'll explain
Speaker 2: them and give them reasons. And so even if people
Speaker 2: didn't like John Howard, they respected him and they thought
Speaker 2: he was predictable. So John Howard is really a great.
Speaker 1: He's a mentor for me, the grast for me, the
Speaker 1: greatest prime minister in the in the modern era. So
Speaker 1: that's what I believe. But that's you know, people can say, well,
Speaker 1: that's because you're a liberal voter now, because John Howard is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I also like Bob Hawk for his you know,
Speaker 1: his person et cetera. It was a great. He was
Speaker 1: a great. He owned the room, Bob Hook, he could
Speaker 1: own the room. In other words, people loved him and
Speaker 1: he had a great team. Yeah, and the unbelievable team.
Speaker 1: But I think that John' right is a great managing direction.
Speaker 1: And I think that you're right. He actually you knew
Speaker 1: what his values were. He didn't go and say these
Speaker 1: are my values, but you knew what his values were
Speaker 1: by the way he executed which I could talk to
Speaker 1: you for hours, but I got I want to ask you.
Speaker 2: Let me say one thing. But I can't get John,
Speaker 2: how you got everything right except for one. And this
Speaker 2: is what so many people suffer when we're talking resilience.
Speaker 2: He stayed too long. Yeah, he didn't know when it
Speaker 2: was time to go. One must face and have worked
Speaker 2: that in their mind when it's time to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in terms of when it's time to go,
Speaker 1: you and I got to go. But I wonder if
Speaker 1: you indulge you just a little, just for a second.
Speaker 1: I only thought about I don't I've never done this
Speaker 1: before with a guest, But I wonder whether or not
Speaker 1: if I could say to you, could I ask you
Speaker 1: five or six really rapid fire questions about about the
Speaker 1: aviation in I thought you're going to say, what, desser,
Speaker 1: I like commercial stuff, commercial avian industry, so and maybe
Speaker 1: just give me quick answers. But like, for example, is
Speaker 1: whether it has the weather changed relative to the safety
Speaker 1: of airlines?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, okay, So we're not getting more. Okay, well I
Speaker 1: won't no more.
Speaker 2: No. The weather that affects aeroplanes, that where people being
Speaker 2: hurt is at high level, and global warming hasn't reached
Speaker 2: the high levels.
Speaker 1: Right, is weather an issue generally at all.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's whether the pilots are experienced. Pilots can navigate weather. No,
Speaker 2: when either not to fly, or to avoid the weather,
Speaker 2: or to turn back. It comes down to experience and personality.
Speaker 2: And I think it's very sad to say. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of injuries occur when people fly into thunderstorms
Speaker 2: for many reasons. Maybe they're not looking at the radar,
Speaker 2: maybe they haven't interpreted properly, maybe the radar has failed.
Speaker 2: It doesn't happen often, it's very rare. But you know,
Speaker 2: with forty million flights a year, some some have been
Speaker 2: flown into thunderstorms and people have been hurt.
Speaker 1: So and you just prompted me on another question forty flights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, are you serious? Are we talking globally that
Speaker 1: there are forty million flights? In other words, and therefore,
Speaker 1: are the sky's becoming more crowded?
Speaker 2: In America, they're overcrowded. Washington, there was a crash between
Speaker 2: a Delta aircraft and helicopter. I think it was Delta.
Speaker 2: I'd say it doesn't manage an aircraft. Again, in America,
Speaker 2: aviation is overcrowded. In Washington, there was a collision between
Speaker 2: a commercial aircraft and helicopter. People are blaming the helicopter
Speaker 2: pilot for that era. He was one hundred feet too high. No,
Speaker 2: you should never ever have a single point of failure.
Speaker 2: Those the two aircraft should not have been in the
Speaker 2: same airspace. The problem was that politicians and the airlines
Speaker 2: wanted more flights, and the airs and air traffic controls
Speaker 2: set repeatedly no, no, no, we're oversaturated. The politics the
Speaker 2: politicians won, there were more flight scheduled, the airspace overcrowded,
Speaker 2: and air traffic control that's using radio communications straight out
Speaker 2: of the Second World War is trying to manage all
Speaker 2: these aircraft in chiny airspace. The problem was not the
Speaker 2: helicopter pilot. The problem was that those aircraft that hadn't
Speaker 2: taken off, and that the systems that we use both
Speaker 2: in communications and air traffic control are totally inadequate in
Speaker 2: that environment.
Speaker 1: Do you think that given the appetite because for new
Speaker 1: aeroplanes and or anywhere, or just aeroplanes generally, particularly with
Speaker 1: the rise of place like India, et cetera, where there's
Speaker 1: you know, once more a time people never flew anywhere,
Speaker 1: but now everybody's flying, do you think that there is
Speaker 1: a that we are being stretched for aircraft, and as
Speaker 1: a result of that, aircraft therefore being kept longer, and therefore,
Speaker 1: as a result of that, more aircraft reor require greater maintenance.
Speaker 2: Aircraft are being held longer because their manufacturers are not
Speaker 2: able to build new aircraft.
Speaker 1: To keep up with the demand.
Speaker 2: Yes, but the fact that it's an old airplane shouldn't
Speaker 2: scare you, because aircraft are maintained by mechanics, they have
Speaker 2: to meet certain standards. You can keep a car going forever,
Speaker 2: and people do. They have cars that in museums that
Speaker 2: will drive. You can keep aeroplanes flying in perfect order
Speaker 2: indefinitely if you just keep the spare parts up. That's
Speaker 2: what airlines do. Now. There are some good airlines and
Speaker 2: there are some airlines are not as good. So I
Speaker 2: think if anyone has a fear of flying, just keep
Speaker 2: to the airline that they're comfortable with and that has
Speaker 2: a good safety record, and they should have no fears
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: Do you think Australian pilots, because I'm an often get
Speaker 1: on planes and other places and other countries, and I
Speaker 1: hear Australian Australian pilots speaking of the address system Australian
Speaker 1: pilots up there into their training and their ability and
Speaker 1: their experience relative.
Speaker 2: I think American, Australian, New Zealand Western European pilots are
Speaker 2: the best in the world, okay, and I rate them
Speaker 2: all evenly, right and sorry, I think Emirates pilots are
Speaker 2: also extremely good, so I rate them all evenly. They're
Speaker 2: all exceptional. And I have no fear whatever putting my family.
Speaker 2: That's a test for a pilot. Would you put your
Speaker 2: family on that airline? I have no problems putting my
Speaker 2: family on any of those countries aircraft.
Speaker 1: And then finally, my final question is this, and I've
Speaker 1: always been interested in this. Given exposure to what's the
Speaker 1: word exposure to not radioactive radiation, radiation. Given exposure to radiation,
Speaker 1: is it true to say what is true to say
Speaker 1: that every time we go up an aer aplane we
Speaker 1: get exposed to a certain amount of radiation, and that
Speaker 1: in a lifetime we only should be able we should
Speaker 1: only have a certain amount of radiation exposed to us
Speaker 1: in a lifetime, otherwise we run a risk of personal illness.
Speaker 1: Is it true, therefore, that pilots have to retire early
Speaker 1: because they're probably near more than anybody else and therefore
Speaker 1: being exposed to radiation at a greater rate than everybody else.
Speaker 2: No, they're not. You're exposed to radiation when you walk outside.
Speaker 2: Aircraft have gold on the inside the windscreen to cut
Speaker 2: down the actuation. There's no increased rate of cancer in
Speaker 2: pilots compared to the rest of the community. There is
Speaker 2: a fear that if you go down there the poles
Speaker 2: where near the magnetic the north and South magnetic poles,
Speaker 2: you get less protection from the magnetic sphere of the Earth,
Speaker 2: but most flights don't do that. Look, I'm not aware
Speaker 2: of anyone having problems. Radiation is all degrees of shitouse.
Speaker 2: There is no radiation that's really good for you, and
Speaker 2: the limits that are there are sort of notional limits.
Speaker 2: But I'm not aware of anyone with the current regime
Speaker 2: of rules and limitations, having any effects from radiation.
Speaker 1: It was as interesting as I did. I did read
Speaker 1: somewhere or hurt someone not in relationships podcast, but that
Speaker 1: I think in a lifetime, and that's obviously fungible, but
Speaker 1: in a lifetime we shouldn't. We're trying to be exposed
Speaker 1: to more than fifty I think it's sea bits of
Speaker 1: radiation per person at an individual, but that's over a lifetime,
Speaker 1: and then they can measure how much you get exposed
Speaker 1: to just walking outside of the street at sea level.
Speaker 1: Then there's another you know, if you're at Mount Everyan's
Speaker 1: there's another level, greater, if you're flying aeroplanes, even greater again,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And then of course we were things like
Speaker 1: X ray machines, you know, not MRI machines, but CT
Speaker 1: CT scans, walking through the security at the airports. Blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Are these real issues that pilots think about.
Speaker 2: And I don't know all the numbers. My gut feeling
Speaker 2: is if you were happy to have a CT scan,
Speaker 2: which is hundreds or thousands of X rays, then you
Speaker 2: shouldn't fear any radiation in an aeroplane or walking outside.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can still get sunburnt walking outside, and
Speaker 2: we're aware of that, but we shouldn't be worried about
Speaker 2: ionizing radiation, which is the problem here from either being outside.
Speaker 2: And I think maybe we should not have too many
Speaker 2: CT scans or the whole body. But generally speaking, I
Speaker 2: don't know a single person who has suffered from radiation damage.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Well, I really so glad to have you
Speaker 1: back in here again. I think it's probably no. Sixth
Speaker 1: some years since our last meeting, and the old days
Speaker 1: when I didn't even have this podcast had a podcasts
Speaker 1: are different.
Speaker 2: Name.
Speaker 1: I can tell anybody that you should read his books,
Speaker 1: two books, but most importantly now you should be listening
Speaker 1: to Rich's new podcast with the podcast available on Spotify.
Speaker 2: The podcast is called Fly the Elements of Resilience YEP,
Speaker 2: talking about everything we are talking about now with the leaders,
Speaker 2: and that's on Spotify, it's on any site where you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And how often you're putting the pods out, it's coming
Speaker 1: out once per week, one a week. Wow. And you're
Speaker 1: getting by some of you getting great guests in there
Speaker 1: to talk about this resilience issue. And it's not just
Speaker 1: resilience in for pilots as resilience across the board.
Speaker 2: It's not for parts at all. I do have one
Speaker 2: person on saying what it's going to take if you
Speaker 2: want to be a pilot. These are the skill sets
Speaker 2: you need before, during, and after. So no, it's resilience
Speaker 2: for your personal, corporate, national lives from the children that
Speaker 2: have just been born through to resilience of the elderly
Speaker 2: that you don't want to help, don't want to let
Speaker 2: them get lonely or stop moving, you know, resilience for
Speaker 2: their life. It's a wonderful, wonderful topic, and I've got
Speaker 2: the most extraordinary people talking and it's a thrill to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Well. I really do hope people tune into that because
Speaker 1: that's given your right level of intelligence and obsessiveness with
Speaker 1: getting things right and understanding of those things, I'm sure
Speaker 1: everyone's going to learn a hell of a lot, especially
Speaker 1: business people who listen to our podcast. To say, Richard,
Speaker 1: thanks Mike,